Speculative: Bush and Obama versus their electoral opponents.

This post is, by necessity, speculative. The subject is, quite simply, what do you think would have been the result if, during the period of Bush and Obamas administrations, their opposite number (Gore/Kerry for Bush, Mc Cain for Obaman) had gotten in during that opposite numbers relevant turn?

Vastly improved America followed by a republican win, Slightly better America, hella worse America. Chronological order.

edited 15th Sep '11 5:26:03 PM by TheDeadMansLife

I don't understand the question...

If in the last three election the opposite, of the big two political parties, had gone and won.

edited 15th Sep '11 5:27:49 PM by TheDeadMansLife

Oh. Well... the US would probably be better off, assuming Gore was intelligent about his environmentalism. Kerry would never be President, though, because Gore would have gotten the '04 nomination, and I assume for the sake of argument that we're saying he wins here.

McCain, in that light, probably wouldn't do too bad. If Palin was his VP, though...

The war in Iraq and the Middle East probably wouldn't have lasted as long as it did/does (it really depends on the observer, and we could spend a whole topic talking about this. Edit: By this I mean, about whether the war in Iraq and the Middle East is over or no), but it's very hard to know for sure.

I'd bet the economy would still be in shambles, though.

edited 15th Sep '11 5:30:44 PM by TheEarthSheep

Iraq would never have happened.

It's possible that we'd still have economic trouble due to overspending on environmental stuff by Gore, but it would never touch the same ballpark as what we spent on the Iraq War. I think we'd be a lot better off, but it would really just be staving off the inevitable for a few more years.

The Great Kick in the Ass of America is bound to happen sooner or later. It just seems that it's going to happen sooner, rather than later.

The reason I feel this is important is because I see many articles criticising Bush or Obama for something they did, particularly in regards to the economy and government deficit.

I felt it would be interesting to look at what the other party might have tried during the critical periods.

Gore would have sent Interpol after Osama Bin Laden...

The 9/11 attacks would still have happened, so Iraq would've happened. We did initially go after them because of 9/11, we just stayed for oil.

And, as far as I know, the economic failure was more due to the housing bubble bursting than anything the government did.

-surplus continues

-economy not damaged by richtax cuts

-Gore, if he has a Democrat house and Senate, may repreal the CFMA, lessening the recession

-Wealth gap is smaller

-Kyoto Protocl ratified

-9/11 might not happen: Gore might have signed some minor bill that increases security to stop men with boxcutters (this is wishful thinking)

Actually, Iraq wasn't really about 9/11. Iraq was already a problem, and 9/11 gave the people a little more encouragement. Iraq was about ending the rule of a vicious dictator.

And Gore's team might not have disbanded the Iraqi Army, which was a disasterous move.

edited 15th Sep '11 5:54:08 PM by Erock

Gore wouldn't have gone after them for it, though. That's the difference. He wouldn't have cared about them enough to take the massive hit to American popularity (or rather, what little we have anymore) abroad...

Hmmm...

I dunno. 9/11 isn't inevitable, first of all.

Second, I think the idea of a war wouldn't have been popular in a Democratic House.

9/11 is inevitable in this Alternate History context. I.e. changing the last two Presidents won't prevent 9/11...

Who knows? Butterfly effect could have stopped it. Remeber, the hijackers weren't very well armed or organized.

edited 15th Sep '11 6:01:50 PM by Erock

No. The attacks were a result of decades of resentment. The Middle East has been very anti-U.S. (and most of the western world as well) for quite a bit of time, IIRC.

I'm absolutely sure that 9/11 still would have happened, given it happened independent of the actions of the last two presidents, happened a year into Bush's term, and has motives going back at least a decade. Butterfly Effect doesn't go back far enough to prevent that in this speculation.

Anyway... we'd still have gone, but probably would have done less. Though I'm not sure how they'd have pulled out after going over there; I don't know enough about Gore's foreign policy to say whether or not he would have done it better.

^^ They were also well underway by the time the 2000 election had happened. Remember it was only in August of 2001 that anything pertaining to the 9/11 plot caught the attention of the FBI and CIA. (And they bungled that regardless of who was President.)

edited 15th Sep '11 6:08:32 PM by MajorTom

No...

I mean the plan of 9/11 might not have worked. They might have gotten busted.

The men were armed with boxcutters, for freak's sake.

Emphasis on the might.

edited 15th Sep '11 6:09:50 PM by Erock

Indeed.

Once again, Iraq probably wouldn't have happened. Afghanistan might have gone even worse than it did because if there was restrictive ROE under Bush, I don't know if they'd even be given lethal rounds with Gore.

Which is a blatant strawman, but take away the exaggeration and you get what I mean...

Erock, it worked with the box cutters because of the attitude towards hijackers at the time.

United Flight 93 will go down in history as American heroes—and it's all because they had the luck to be informed of the rest of the attacks mid-flight...

edited 15th Sep '11 6:11:53 PM by USAF713

And that's an issue with airport security fucking it up. I'm fairly certain the president doesn't micromanage to that level, and certainly didn't then.

Doesn't matter what they were armed with, there was nothing Bush (or Gore) could've done to stop them by the time he knew anything about it (presumably a few minutes after the attacks).

edited 15th Sep '11 6:11:40 PM by TheEarthSheep

I think neither Gore or Bush would have been ready for that attack.

I remember there was a Batman Beyond episode that Terry asked his studying partner the president who came after Clinton he then told him that was the boring president.If the writers expected Gore to win then they were dead wrong because I can say the Bush years left an impression the world will never forget.

and: Again, it probably would have still happened.

However, the butterfly efefct of the election going the other way might have effected something. Just because they pulled it off this timelne doesn't mean they make a mistake in this alternate one.

I'm not even sure what your point is anymore, Erock. Even if one set of them made a mistake doesn't mean the others don't happen. And again, it happened independently of who got elected that time, and it was airport security's fault for letting them in, if you want to pass blame. And we handled plane hijackings differently the. All things that had nothing to do with the president.

edited 15th Sep '11 6:16:17 PM by AceofSpades